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Best way to clean polished porcelain tiles in kitchen?

3 years ago

Bonjour fellow Houzzers!

Keeping my large kitchen floor clean and shiny is a bit of a heartache! Walking across in socks leaves detailed footprints ha! What is the best way to clean?

The general (quite gruelling) routine I had going was:

Vacuum

2) Steam mop with just water (sometimes I would add a drop of zoflora to the water tank but this sometimes causes streakiness so mostly leave it out)

3) Dry microfibre cloth towel mop over floor (towel replaced about 4 times through process)

4) Another run over with microfibre to catch any streaks

5) Sometimes another quick run over with vacuum again to get bits of cloth or dust that have cropped up

6) If the floor was very oily like if olive oil has splashed on floor during cooking, the entire thing needs repeating because the floor is still smudgy.

Now our steam mop has gone kaput, this is our chance to review our methods... Anyone got any insights for me?

Merci en avance :-)

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Comments (2)

krissie55
3 years ago
Mop with 1 gallon hot water with 1/2 cup white vinegar added. Do not use cleaners that have oil or soap. I also like to use 50/50 solution of water plus alcohol.
SJ McCarthy
3 years ago
Windex is your friend. Windex original formula (with ammonia) is a lovely degreaser. The 5% ammonia content is IDENTICAL to 'commercial' floor strippers. If it can clean windows and mirrors it does VERY well with shiny tiles.

And yes...the HIGH GLOSS finishes are SUPER TOUGH to live with. They show EVERYTHING. The super matte floors ALSO have these issues. The EXTREMES are hard to deal with (should come with live-in cleaning people).

The biggest thing to remember: water evaporates but DIRT and MUD do not. If you want to remove the dirt you need to TOWEL IT OFF. If you use a damp mop, then you MUST towel dry the water off the floor. The towel picks up the mud as well as the water.

And...of course, start wearing slippers. The oils on your socks = skin oils. They drop oil. Oil GRABS dust. Dust lines the foot print and makes it visible.

I would personally look at purchasing a gallon of Windex. Use it FIRST. Then try the steam mop. NO OIL-BASED soaps or cleaners. Anything that says 'Eco-Cleaner' is GUARANTEED to be an oil based cleaner...."Natural Orange oil", "Thyme Oil", "Sage Oil", etc. Get the idea? All of these oils will SIT on your floor. Again, water evaporates but OIL does not.
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We've tried just water, vinegar and baking soda. But so far nothing helped. Please advise. Vinegar can strip color right out of cement based grouts especially fresh and still curing grout by saying your bathroom is recently re tiled you need to allow grout to cure before using anything on it especially with non permeable porcelain tile. I second creative tile call MFG and ask, you are always best getting answers direct form MFG. You may find that to remedy it the very same sealer can be used. Also inquire about the type sealer and how soon you can seal the type grout you used because you are not sealing polished porcelain as it requires NO sealer nor accepts it.
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